There are numerous health benefits associated with breastfeeding your newborn child, according to the National Institute of Child Health and Development. These benefits include boosting your baby's immune function, delivery of a healthy balance of essential nutrients and fatty acids that aid neuronal development, and a significant reduction in infant death during the first year. As a breastfeeding mother, you may also benefit by reducing the risk of postpartum depression and some cancers including breast, uterine and ovarian cancer. However, the benefits to you and your baby may be negated if you are engaging in an unhealthy lifestyle, which may include smoking and drinking.
Cancer
Cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption significantly raises the risk of developing many serious health complications including several forms of cancer. Smoking is most notably linked to the development of lung cancer. If you actually smoke around your baby, whether breastfeeding or not, you are exposing your child to all the same harmful components in cigarette smoke that you are inhaling into your lungs and are, therefore, increasing your child's risk of cancer. Even if you smoke in the absence of your child and then later breastfeed him, you are still introducing nicotine into his system through your milk, according to Drugs.com. Additionally, cigarette smoking may actually reduce the content of essential fats within the milk, alter the flavor and reduce the rate at which the baby gains weight, which is important for normal development. Similar to smoking, if you drink alcohol, it will stay in your system for several hours after you finish drinking. The alcohol can pass from your milk to the baby and may cause serious developmental side effects. Heavy alcohol consumption is associated with many health problems including a higher risk for some cancers like pancreatic and liver cancer. Drugs.com suggests that you wait at least two hours for every alcoholic drink before breastfeeding your baby.
Slow Motor Development
Babies that are breastfed from mothers who are heavy drinkers show a decrease in basic motor development, according to the March of Dimes. Essentially, this means that these children are slower to learn crawling and walking skills when compared to babies not exposed to alcohol in breast milk. Additionally, alcohol consumption may result in a reduced ejection of breast milk during feeding.
Lack of Sleep
Cigarette smoking while breastfeeding may also alter the sleeping pattern of your baby. According to a study in the September 2007 issue of "Pediatrics," mothers who smoked cigarettes less than an hour before breastfeeding their infants altered the sleep patterns of their infants. Babies fed milk from a mother who had recently smoked had an increase in alertness and a reduction in sleep time
